
PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURE 



BY EDUCATION A^D GOYERTSTMENT AID. 



PROF. EUGENE W. ELLaARD, 



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 



[Reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly for April and May, 1882.] 



PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURE BY EDUCATION AND GOVERN- 
MENT AID. 



I. 



The rapid progress of American in- 
dustries within the last decade, espe- 
cially since financial uncertainties have 
ceased to disturb the political atmos- 
phere, is a matter of common and al- 
most trite remark and congratulation ; 
and at the present moment the process 
of development seems likely to continue 
with a geometrical ratio of increase, 
both as regards manufactures and agri- 
culture. The key-note originally sound- 
ed by the promoters of the Pacific rail- 
roads, " Attack the wilderness with rail- 
roads," has awakened gigantic echoes 
from the Dominion of Canada to JMex- 
ico. But the quality of the tone has 
somewhat changed. Mining, the orig- 
inal motive, however important still, is 
being overshadowed by the fundamen- 
tal industry, agriculture, even in the 
land of gold itself, and in the heart of 
the " great American desert," which 
seems destined to become in its turn, 
for a time, the granary of the world. 
American commerce has carried coal to 
Newcastle, cutlery to Shefiield, haras to 
Westphalia, and grain to Russia. Our 
exports of breadstuffs, and even of the 
perishable article of fresh meats, are 
making such formidable competition for 
the European farmer that he would 
fain invoke against it the reenactment 
of protective tariffs, for whose repeal 
he gave the casting vote in the struggle 
with which the name and fame of Cob- 
den are linked. 

With the development and prosperity 
of the fundamental industry, all other 
Industries flourish. The prosperous 
farmer is enabled to supply himself not 
only with the necessaries of life, but 
also with luxuries, and to pay the trib- 
ute exacted from him by a protective 



tariff on such primarily important ar- 
ticles as iron and steel ; thereby giv- 
ing extraordinary encouragement to the 
home manufacture of that and of oth- 
er articles, and thus again indirectly 
causing fearful competition to the Eu- 
ropean manufacturer. Stinted in wages, 
or thrown out of employment altogeth- 
er, the more ambitious portion of Euro- 
pean laborers comes to swell the tide 
of immigration, as well as, in a fast in- 
creasing ratio, the industrial wave that 
sweeps westward, regardless alike of 
the terrors of " the desert," the rugged 
mountains, and the hostile Indian. 

It is pertinent to inquire what the 
United States government has done and 
is doing toward the conservation, en- 
couragement, and practical promotion 
of this stupendous interest, which in- 
volves, as direct producers, over one 
half of the population of the United 
States, and, indirectly, the essential con- 
ditions of the prosperity of the whole. 
The manufacturing and other industries 
have been assiduously fostered by jjro- 
tective tariffs, often far beyond the time 
when any such assistance was really 
needed, save for the enrichment of in- 
dividuals ; and such duties have often 
pressed heavily upon the interests of 
agriculture. The prosperity and prog- 
ress of the latter industry, notwithstand- 
ing such disadvantages, were held to 
prove the needlessness of government 
aid ; and for the first eighty-six years 
of the republic, almost the only direct 
recognition agriculture received at the 
hands of the general government was 
embodied in small subdivisions of the 
patent-office building and reports, and 
ill very general and usually ill-observed 
instructions to government surveyors to 
note the agricultural capabilities of the 
regions surveyed by them. But most of 



Progress in Agriculture. 



these notes remained, as a rule, pigeon- 
holed in the general land office. 

Most prominent among the factors 
that have contributed toward the ex- 
traordinary development and prosperity 
of agriculture in the United States is, 
unquestionably, the great native fertil- 
ity of soils, as yet unexhausted in the 
newer States and Territories, which are 
thus enabled to pour out upon the East 
and upon Europe the accumulated soil 
treasures of many ages. That these 
cannot hold out forever, or even for 
many years to come, is an inexorable law 
of nature ; and the steady diminution 
of production per acre in the States 
east of the Mississippi River, resulting 
in their increasing inability to compete 
in the growing of cereals with the new- 
er States, has long given warning that 
the experience of the Old World is be- 
ing repeated on the new continent, and 
that the old and ever - recurring ques- 
i/ion is upon us of maintaining profita- 
ble productiveness by means of system- 
atic culture and returns to the soil. 

Whether this question shall be al- 
lowed to assume the asjiect of the men- 
ace that annually confronts the Euro- 
pean agriculturist, — " No manure, no 
crops," — or whether an ounce of intelli- 
gent prevention shall forestall the heavy 
burdens that will otherwise rest upon 
the coming generation and its industries, 
is the issue that must largely be deter- 
mined by enlightened government ac- 
tion, in the face of the already inveter- 
ate bad habits of the vast majority of 
American farniers, that are, as usual, 
promptly adopted by the European im- 
migrant. Tho ravaging of the virgin 
soils by heavy cropping without change, 
or even the slightest attempt at returns, 
followed by the " turning-out " of the 
*' tired " xand, and, too often, by the 
washing away of the surface soil from 
the h.".rd plow-sole formed by shallow 
tilla;,e, not uncommonly resulting in 
tli<j definitive ruin of the land for agri- 
cultural purposes, is repeated more or 



less in every newly settled region. De- 
serted homesteads, and melancholy old 
fields scarred with gullies, mar the face 
of the land in the rear of the pioneer 
farmer, and impose upon his steadier 
successor a heavy tax, in the way of rec- 
lamation, on soils that, if rationally cul- 
tivated, would not have felt the need of 
manure for scores of years. For want 
of the most rudimentary knowledge of 
agricultural facts and principles, the 
planters of the South have for three 
quarters of a century wasted nine crops 
of cotton for every one made, by fail- 
ing to utilize the chief product of their 
fields — cotton seed — for returns to the 
soil, which needs but little more to main- 
tain its full productiveness forever. 
Such a crying evil as this would hardly 
have been allowed to exist so long in 
any country less averse to the least sem- 
blance of paternal government, without 
something more than the faint warninsrs 
and remonstrances uttered from time to 
time in the periodical press, or in gov- 
ernment documents. The great perfec- 
tion attained by agricultural implements 
for large-scale culture, under the hands 
of American inventive skill, serves but 
to add to the rapidity with which the 
process of soil devastation is carried 
forward into new fields. 

Apart from this primary and most 
serious problem, there are thousands of 
other questions, of less general impor- 
tance but locally of equal interest, that 
confront the farmer, especially in the 
newer States, surrounded as he is by 
new conditions of soil and climate, with 
which he does not know how to deal, 
save in so far as his previous experience 
and good judgment may aid him. The 
farming of the first generation is usual- 
ly a series of experiments, in which the 
native fertility of the soil is the saving 
clause between profit and loss. As the 
soil becomes less thrifty by wear, the 
second and third generations continue 
the course of experimenting as to crops 
and methods of culture giving the high 



Progress in Agriculture. 



est profit under the local circumstances. 
Few, however, realize the best results 
that could be achieved with the means 
at command, and many are the disheart- 
ening failures, under the pressure of 
which the farmer abandons his " im- 
provements," in search of the fabled 
" soil that never gives out," supposed to 
exist somewhere to westward. If the 
conditions of the best success, as ascer- 
tained by systematic investigation, had 
but been pointed out from the begin- 
ning, or if even the actual experience of 
the prosperous few had promptly been 
made generally known, how different 
would have been the history of agricul- 
ture in most of the States west of the 
Allegheny Mountains ! If the measure 
of success has been great even under 
the tentative, unsystematic practice pre- 
vailing thus far, how much greater 
might it have been had the light of sys- 
tematic scientific research been made 
to precede the industrial army, instead 
of following slowly in its rear, to show 
the causes of the results that have fol- 
lowed the blind experimenting of the 
vanguard ! The work, however, is one 
that lies beyond the power of young 
communities or even States. Of late, 
one of the great railroad corporations ^ 
has thought it worth while to institute 
an agricultural survey of the regions 
through which its lines are to pass. But 
it seems peculiarly the province of the 
general government to take measures 
tending to remedy the omissions of the 
past, and to provide against their recur- 
rence in the future. 

The year 1862 will in this connection 
remain memorable in the history of 
American agriculture. The subject of 
a donation of public lands for the en- 
dowment of industrial colleges had been 
repeatedly mooted, and in 1857 a bill to 
that effect was brought before Congress 
by Mr. Morrill, of Vermont. But in the 
violence of political agitation at that 
I The Northern Pacific. 



time, and on account of the especial op- 
position to the exercise of power by the 
Federal government, it did not become 
a law. The subsequent events, leading 
to the civil war, created a strong pop- 
ular tendency in the reverse direction, 
in the Northern States ; and this, con- 
currently with the consciousness of the 
need of popular support on the part of 
the government, resulted in the passage 
by Congress, and approval by the pres- 
ident, of two measures most important 
to agriculture : the creation of the De- 
partment of Agriculture as an independ- 
ent bureau, and the donation to the 
States of thirty thousand acres of public 
lands for each representative, for the 
endowment, in each, of " at least one 
college, where the leading object shall 
be, without excluding other scientific 
and classical studies, and including mil- 
itary tactics, to teach such branches of 
learning as are related to agriculture 
and the mechanic arts, in such manner 
as the legislatures of the States may 
respectively prescribe, in order to pro- 
mote the liberal and practical education 
of the industrial classes in the several 
pursuits and professions in life." 

This beneficent act to promote the arts 
of peace, again championed chiefly by 
Mr. Morrill, and passed almost within 
hearing of hostile cannon, is entitled, 
whether by oversight or with a view to 
the conciliation of popular sentiment, 
" A bill for the benefit of agricultural 
colleges," — a title which does not do 
justice to its broad and liberal scope, 
and wise deference to the varied require- 
ments of the different portions of the 
immense empire covered by its action. 
As a matter of fact, the impression con- 
veyed in that title has in a great meas- 
ure remained fixed in the popular mind 
and parlance, it being usually designated 
as " the agricultural college act : " and 
this has given rise to not a few misap- 
prehensions and acrimonious discussions 
that a candid consideration of the act 
itself would have rendered superfluous. 



Progress in Agriculture. 



It was natural and proper that in the 
States in which agriculture was the over- 
shadowing interest it should have taken 
precedence, both in point of time and 
allotment of funds, of the " mechanic 
arts ; " and it was equally natural that 
in manufacturing States the latter should 
have claimed the lion's share, for the 
time being. The subdivision of the fund 
into two portions, applied to the estab- 
lishment or farther endowment of sep- 
arate institutions representing the two 
greg(t industrial branches, has been pre- 
ferred by two States, Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania ; while in the rest, both 
have remained united within one insti- 
tution, newly established or preexisting. 
It is not proposed to discuss in this pa- 
per the topic of instruction in the me- 
chanic arts, but to deal first with that 
portion of the subject in which agricul- 
ture is directly concerned, and by the 
light of the experience had to consider 
wliat are and should be the functions of 
the United States Department of Agri- 
cultui'e. 

One of the most salutary effects pro- 
duced by the Morrill act was the lively 
interest and discussion respecting the 
proper organization of the new institu- 
tions to be formed under it, which arose 
wherever the law was carried into effect. 
A compact and impartial history of 
these first efforts, failures and successes, 
would be of great interest to educators, 
but is yet to be written : and it is per- 
haps too soon to attempt the task, since 
the actual outcome of the several plans 
represented in the different States is still 
subject to great differences of opinion. 

As usual, two extremes have disputed 
precedence with each other, and, as usu- 
al, the final and best result will doubt- 
less be found between them. On the 
one hand, it has been contended by 
many of those representing the colleges 
and universities that both the letter and 
.ntent of the law would be best carried 
3ut, and the greatest benefits conferred 



upon the classes named in the act, by 
the establishment of schools of science 
in connection with the older institutions, 
already possessed of a large part of the 
personnel and appliances needful for 
teaching " such branches of learning as 
are related to agriculture and the me- 
chanic arts, without excluding other sci- 
entific and classical studies." These ap- 
peared to require only the additional en- 
dowment in order to perform fully and 
advantageously the desired functions, 
and this mode of utilizing the endow- 
ments seemed the more expedient, be- 
cause the funds realized from the con- 
gressional donation were in most cases 
obviously inadequate for the maintenance 
of institutions embracing all the educa- 
tional branches called for by the act. 
Since the new institutions could not be 
numerous or extensive enough to edu- 
cate the industrial millions, it was ar- 
gued that they must aim first of all to 
educate the leaders of progress, to whom 
the most thorough liberal as well as sci- 
entific training ought to be given. 

On the other hand, it was contended, 
chiefly by the industrial classes them- 
selves, that such a connection would be 
likely to deprive them of the benefits of 
the act especially intended to be con- 
feri'ed upon them, and, while the '• lib- 
eral " part of the education would doubt- 
less be fully attended to by the older 
colleges thus additionally endowed, the 
" practical " would be either left out 
or restricted within narrow limits ; that, 
in fact, the whole intent of the act was 
obviously in the latter direction; and 
that the object would be best served by 
the establishment of new institutions, 
separate and, if possible, remote from 
the influence of the traditional college, 
where " agriculture and the mechanic 
arts " were looked down upon as of in- 
ferior degree and dignity, and where 
those devoting themselves to their pur- 
suit would be subjected to the sneers of 
their classical and literary fellow-stu- 
dents. Coupled with these views was, 



Progress in Agriculture. 



usually, a demand for the enforcement 
of some manual labor upon the pupils, 
with the object of creating, or main- 
taining, a habit of work, and imparting 
* that training of the hand and of the 
eye that is so essential to success in in- 
dustrial pursuits, and which has beeu so 
conspicuously neglected in the tradition- 
al curriculum of education. Moreover, 
it was thought that these institutions 
ought to be and could be so constituted 
that " every farmer's son " could profit 
by their instruction. That is, they con- 
tended that the education of the millions, 
and not that of the leaders only, was to 
be compassed under the Morrill act. 

The measure of truth contained in 
each of these contradictory ^propositions 
has rendered their respective advocates 
singularly tenacious of their respective 
views, and the result has been the adop- 
tion, in different States, of either plan, 
according to the predominant elements 
of the population ; or, in some cases, ac- 
cording to the accident of finding some 
vigorous and capable hand to carry either 
into effect, — the first success varying 
accordingly. 

It is not the object of this paper to 
discuss these experiments and experi- 
ences in detail or exhaustively. It is 
proposed to trace the general process of 
evolution, as exemplified now by one 
and then by another of the American 
colleges, whether established prior to, or 
in pursuance of, the Morrill act of do- 
nation. No single one, perhaps, could 
as yet be found to illustrate in its his- 
tory, in a striking manner, all the sev- 
eral phases ; but the attentive observer 
will be able to sup()ly the examples, 
and will, it is thought, find the picture 
a truthful one. 

So far as the colleges organized on 
what may be called the popular plan are 
concerned, their establishment was in 
most cases accompanied or followed by 
an outburst of popular enthusiasm, in 
jonsequeuce of which their ranks were 



quickly filled, even to overflowing, thus 
giviug to their advocates a basis for 
claiming an overwhelming success. It 
was proclaimed that at last the sons of 
the industrial classes had been given the 
opportunity for a sound " labor educa- 
tion," fitting them at once for their vo- 
cation, instead of simply preparing them 
to acquire it for themselves by weary 
experience. The workshop and the 
farm had replaced the lecture-room, in 
which pupils were as a rule unfitted for 
industrial pursuits, by having other ideas 
" put into their heads," so that they rare- 
ly returned to the farm. 

The radical error of the position as- 
sumed by the advocates of the " popu- 
lar plan " was that, in their eagerness 
to assert the high position which agri- 
culture ought to hold in the estimation 
of mankind, they frequently overshot 
the mark, so as effectually to assert its 
lowliness, its inability to bear compari- 
son with other pursuits by the light of a 
liberal education. In their anxiety to 
protect the agricultural student from 
possible snobbish sneers, arising from 
the antiquated idea that all manual la- 
bor is beneath the dignity of educated 
men, they proposed to make that idea 
a determining factor in the choice of 
the location, connection, and organiza- 
tion of the new schools, by withdrawing 
them as much as possible from contact 
with the existing centres of high cul- 
ture. In this dignified seclusion they 
hoped to convince the pupils, uncontra- 
dicted, of the dignity of labor, — sur- 
rounding them with a dense " agricul- 
tural atmosphere," through which n-o 
other rays should penetrate. It was 
even proclaimed in an agricultural con- 
vention that " muscle must be ])\\t on 
a level with brain," and the sentiment 
was actually greeted with applause at 
first, though subsequently followed by 
energetic protest against such stultifica- 
tion of the cause of agriculture. This 
grave error, so diametrically opposed to 
the letter and spirit of the Morrill act, 



Progress in Agriculture. 



has served long and well to sharpen the 
arrows of satire agamst the agricultural 
colleges, and to deter ambitious young 
men from entering them, even where a 
different system prevailed. 

The institutions organized as scientific 
schools, and, as a natural consequence, 
in connection with preexisting colleges 
or universities, by a simple amplifica- 
tion of the scope of scientific instruc- 
tion, found themselves quite unembar- 
rassed by numbers, even where there 
was a sincere desire to fulfill in every 
respect the intent of the act ; which, un- 
fortunately, was not always the case, 
thus creating much ill feeling, acrimoni- 
ous discussions, and unwise legislation. 
To speak plainly, some of these institu- 
tions had to wait a year or two for the 
first student in the special departments ; 
not counting a few cautious nibbles on 
the part of raw country lads, who need- 
ed but a short time to find out that 
their place was not there, the prepara- 
tion obtainable in the country gram- 
mar school being quite inadequate to en- 
able them to pursue understandingly the 
courses of instruction offered. There 
followed some years of unexciting tete- 
a-tetes of agricultural instructors with 
single students, or with the minimum 
number usually supposed to constitute a 
class ; thus giving the teachers abun- 
dant leisure to reflect on the causes of 
this failure to apjDreciate the advantages 
offered. It may not be irrelevant to 
observe that the present paper owes its 
origin, in part, to a similar opportunity 
for reflection, and subsequent action 
thereon. 

The results of these cogitations were 
very various, all perforce agreeing in 
the conclusion that there was little de- 
mand for agricultural education of the 
character offered, namely, that which is 
adapted to the training up of agricul- 
tural experts, — the Oekonumen of Ger- 
many. This fact was painfully appar- 
ent from the beginning, in the great, 
and in many cases for years insuffer- 



able, diflJiculty of finding well-qualified 
teachers of agricultural science for the 
new institutions. Men had to be trained, 
or had to train themselves, especially 
for that purpose, as quickly as might 
be ; and many have been the curious 
demonstrations of the difference be- 
tween merely knowing how to do a 
thing by rote and the ability to teach 
students the why and wherefore. This 
was especially the case in the agricul- 
tural schools established on the popular 
plan, where " plain, practical farmers " 
were placed in charge of classes of boys 
who had grown up on farms, and who 
soon found that they were learning lit- 
tle beyond a somewhat improved handi- 
craft, at the expense of half their time 
spent in field labor, differing but slight- 
ly from that to which they had been in- 
ured from childhood, on the home farm. 

This, in fact, proved the turning-point 
in the popularity of the " labor " schools. 
After the first flush of enthusiasm, par- 
ents as well as sons began to gauge the 
benefits received under the system which 
gave half the pupils' time, or more, to 
manual labor, conveying little or noth- 
ing new after a few weeks' practice, 
and therefore of no educational value. 
It soon began to be said that the pu- 
pils were made to work for the profit 
of the college, with occasionally the ad- 
ditional intimation that they had to la- 
bor to " maintain a lot of professors in 
idleness," instead of getting an educa- 
tion, and that tlie parents might as well 
take them home, and get the benefit of 
that service themselves. 

To this the advocates of the labor 
system replied that the farm work, in- 
structive or not, was necessary to main- 
tain the habit of manual labor ; that if 
it were omitted the students would lose 
that habit, have their minds and tastes 
diverted from the farm, and would to a 
great extent take to other occupations 
in life. 

The parents rejoined that they sent 
their boys to the college to get an edu 



Progress in Agriculture. 



cation, first of all ; to make them better 
farmers, if farmers they chose to be, 
but, above all, to be educated. 

The first and early result of the con- 
troversy was that the pupils were paid 
wages, instead of working gratuitously, 
as at first ; and another tidal-wave of 
popularity set in. A farmer's boy was 
now given an opportunity to pay his 
way and get an education at the same 
time, so that the poorest could avail 
himself of the benefits of the college, 
with little or no expense to his parents. 

This phase of the process of develop- 
ment has taken strong hold of the pop- 
ular fancy, and is still among the first 
ideas broached wherever the subject of 
agricultural education is discussed among 
the farming population. The theory 
that after giving half or more of the day 
to sedentary mental study the rest can 
quite as beneficially be devoted to tak- 
ing the needed physical exercise in the 
guise of remunerative farm labor as in 
the taking of walks, ball-playing, bicy- 
cling, or other games producing no ob- 
vious useful result, seems simple and in- 
controvertible ; the more, as such things 
have so often been done, and are con- 
stantly being done, by young men who, 
from obscurity, have risen to high posi- 
tions. 

The proposition involves, however, 
several fallacies that seriously interfere 
with the practical working of the plan, 
which, as is frequently the case in social 
problems, fails to take sufiiciently into 
account that human nature of which 
boys have so large a share, as well as 
the fact that the average boy sent to the 
colleges, though legally entitled to the 
chance of becoming president of the 
United States, is far from being made 
of the sterner stuff from which Whit- 
tingtons and Franklins are evolved. He 
s to a great extent hopelessly obtuse 
in respect to the amusing features of 
plowing, hoeing, or weeding, and the 
more so the greater his familiarity with 



them at home. He is perversely dis- 
posed to prefer a climb upon the most 
rugged hills and the most fatiguing ath- 
letic games, to the gentlest and most lu- 
crative work in the cornfield or stable. 
He may be persuaded or compelled to 
conform his acts to the prescribed dis- 
cipline ; but it may be gravely ques- 
tioned whether, as a rule, such compul- 
sion is conducive to a preference for the 
pursuit of agriculture as a life occupa- 
tion, more particularly in the case of 
those boys whose natural ability would 
make them most influential in the cause 
of agricultural progress. 

The gravest objection, however, is 
one that remains unperceived, in a great 
measure, even by those most immediate- 
ly concerned, but which becomes glar- 
ingly apparent to the teacher who is 
not satisfied with merely going through 
his class exercises, but scrutinizes the 
results achieved when and after the pu- 
pil leaves the institution. 

The inadequacy of the time usually 
given to the preparation for life in 
American colleges is a standing griev- 
ance, and one that all the ingenuity an- 
nually brought to bear on the revision 
of the curriculum by the college facul- 
ties has not and cannot overcome. The 
traditional four years' course cannot 
possibly be made to hold all that is now 
needed to be known by every well-edu- 
cated man and woman, without omit- 
ting or weakening to utter inanity too 
much of the fundamental training need- 
ful to proper and well-balanced use of 
the mental faculties. To use a homely 
phrase, it becomes more and more im- 
possible to " put that quart into the pint 
pot" that was amply large fifty years 
ago. This is most especially true of 
those courses embracing a considerable 
proportion of studies in the natural 
sciences, whose stupendous development 
and important applications to every-day 
life are so prominent a feature of our 
time. 

As neither students nor parents can 



Progress in Agriculture. 



at present, as a rule, be persuaded to 
prolong the term of education in col- 
lege beyond the traditional four years, 
it follows that the student has no time 
to spare for anything that is not of 
educational value, or can readily be 
learned outside of the college. And it 
follows equally that the time spent in 
merely mechanical, uninstructive labor 
in the aorricultural colleges detracts to 
that extent from the opportunities of 
the student, and stunts his education. 

No pretense of nursing the " habit 
of labor " can offset this grievous, and 
in the course of the student's life usual- 
ly irreparable injurj- ; no special plea 
that, unless this course is pursued, his 
mind may be turned away from agricul- 
ture can stand for a moment. The 
colleges intended for " the liberal and 
practical education of the industrial 
classes " cannot legitimately be trans- 
formed into missionary establishments 
for the conversion of youth unto agri- 
cultural pursuits, by surrounding them 
with an opaque agricultural atmosphere. 
It is the duty of parents to afford their 
children the ■ best opportunities within 
their means for a judicious selection of 
the life pursuit which shall be best 
adapted to their natural talents and 
tastes, and wise parents will rarely do 
more than to assist them in the selection, 
whether of a profession or of a com- 
panion for life. Nor will they be dis- 
posed to find fault with the schools o-r 
colleges that have given their own chil- 
dren the opportunity of recognizing the 
vocation that will make them most suc- 
cessful. It is not for the purpose of 
learning how to plow and hoe, but why 
to plow and hoe at all, and when and 
where to do it to the best advantage, 
that parents are willing to send their 
sons to the colleges. In any case, the 
" rubbing-iu " of the purely mechanical 
part of the farmer's vocation is hardly 
calculated to inspire a preference in that 
direction, especially when the pupil is 
conscious that his education is thereby 



curtailed. He is quick to perceive that, 
while " honest labor " dignifies the la- 
borer because it is honest, it is not more 
dignified or honest because unintelligent, 
or such as can be performed as well by 
a steam-engine or a horse. 

It cannot be questioned that it is pre- 
cisely this aspect of farming — its sup- 
posed necessary association with hard, 
unintelligent, merely mechanical labor, 
unrelieved by any considerable use of 
the intellect — that has in the past 
caused it to be looked down upon as a 
pursuit unworthy of educated and intel- 
lectual men, and which still supports the 
same view, to some extent. An aver- 
sion to farming is often apparent among 
those engaged in it, and leads to the 
neglect of home life ; and home adorn- 
ment while such expressions by par- 
ents as " I don't want my childi-en to 
drudge as I have done " go far towards 
promoting the hegira of the most am- 
bitious portion of the young rural pop- 
ulation to the towns and cities, — to the 
dry -goods counter, counting-house desk, 
and other overstocked occupations, of 
immensely inferior intellectual oppor- 
tunities, but opening to them more or 
less the possibility of considering them- 
selves an integral part of a polite con> 
munity, and of participating in those 
recreations and amusements from which 
the jihysical and social isolation of an 
American farm would largely exclude 
them. 

Another, and perhaps the most in- 
fluential, cause lies in the character of 
elementary instruction, both at home 
and in the common school. The very 
existence of the latter has brought about 
a feeling, on the part of the jiarents, 
that they discharge their whole duty 
to their children by making them at- 
tend school ; so that home instruction 
is almost laid aside, not only during the 
school years proper, but also at the time 
when the child's physical perceptions 
are most acate and wide-awake, — the 
time which the kindergarten system of 



Progress in Agriculture. 



instruction utilizes so admirably in train- 
ing and sharpening the naturally pre- 
dominating interest in objective nature. 
"When little or nothing is done in that 
direction at home, and the child finds, 
on reaching school, that the subjects so 
closely connected with home and farm 
life are almost totally neglected, the nat- 
ural impression will be that they are 
inferior in importance to writing, read- 
ing, and arithmetic, and that the percep- 
tion, knowledge, and handling of merely 
physical objects is of little educational 
OP intellectual value. To this repres- 
sion of the child's perceptive faculties 
by the time-honored scholastic system of 
teaching must be ascribed a far greater 
share in the lack of interest in agricul- 
tural education than can be compensated 
by any system of organization in the ag- 
ricultural colleges. These can never do 
their best work upon material whose 
home and school education have com- 
bined to turn the taste away from agri- 
cultural pursuits. 

Again, the rural village, to which the 
European peasant's son looks back with 
longing as the scene of his youth's en- 
joyments, is as yet an unknown quantity 
in the greater portion of the United 
States, and especially so in the properly 
agricultural regions of the Union, where 
farms are large and the dwellings sep- 
arated by long intervals. The county 
towns and cross-roads hamlets, where 
on Saturdays a portion of the rural pop- 
ulation congregates around the black- 
smith's shop, variety store, and corner 
grocery, rarely offer any rational social 
enjoyment, even in temperance commu- 
nities ; while in the frontier States these 
gatherings not uufrequently exemplify 
Pandemonium. 

The recognition of this comparative 
barrenness of the farmer's intellectual 
and social life in the large agricultural 
States has found practical expression 
in the " Grange " movement, which cou- 
temjilates essentially cooperation for the 
social, intellectual, and professional im- 



provement of the members, and through 
this the promotion of education, knowl- 
edge, and emulation, thereby securing 
the elevation of the farmer's calling and 
also rendering it more profitable. 

The distinctively social feature of 
the order of Patrons of Husbandry, min- 
istering to one of the greatest needs of 
our rural population, has enabled it to 
survive the probationary period and the 
mistakes into which its leaders fell at 
first in affiliating it with political par- 
ties ; so that, after the first recoil, it is 
reviving and steadily extending on a 
more solid basis than before, and with 
less prospect of reaction. Its declaration 
of purposes and principles expresses 
well and forcibly the foremost need of 
American agriculture : not a holding- 
down of the aspirations of youth to the 
grindstone, by unremitting labor and a 
stinted education, like the peasant class 
of Europe ; but the ennobling of the 
farmer's pursuit by the use of knowl- 
edge, under the guidance of a trained 
intellect, and the lightening of the bur- 
den of labor thereby, both in directing 
it into the most profitable channels, and 
in taking from it the sensation as well 
as the reproach of drudgery by render- 
ing it intelligent. 

Viewed from the stand-point of the 
avowed programme of the Grange, the 
labor-school plan is a step in the wrong 
direction, unless that labor is kept strict- 
ly within the limits of instruction, prop- 
erly so called ; and although this incom 
patibility has not always beeu recog 
nized, and in many cases granges and 
grange conventions have passed resolu- 
tions expressing the reverse oi)inion, 
yet the steady tendency of the colleges 
has been toward the abandonment of all 
uninstructive labor as a task incumbent 
upon the students, while, nevertheless, 
offering them every opportunity and in- 
ducement to engage in such labor of 
their own accoi'd, for exercise, recrea- 
tion, or profit, as the case might be. 
On the other hand, instrudive labor 



10 



Progress in Agriculture. 



such as is given the pupil for the sake 
of illustrating and impressing ujaon him 
the principles he is or has been study- 
ing, can only exceptionally fulfill the 
regular requirements of a well-conduct- 
ed " model " farm, and is frequently as 
little capable of being made profitable 
to the college as is the laboratory work 
of elementary students in chemistry. 
It cannot, therefore, as a rule, be com- 
pensated, a fact now distinctly set forth 
in the I'egisters of several prominent ag- 
ricultural colleges. 

With the abandonment of obligatory 
uninstructive labor, the project of mak- 
ing ever}' student pay his college ex- 
penses while getting his education also 
falls to the ground. It is as incompat- 
ible with his acquisition of a sound edu- 
cation wiUiin the four-year limit as the 
financial success of a farm conducted 
with a view to the best general instruc- 
tion is impossible. In other words, a 
good education is necessarily expensive 
and not lucrative, for the time being ; 
and if the student spend half of his time 
in making his expenses, he will have 
to stint his education to a correspond- 
ing extent, or he must give a longer to- 
tal time to it. The latter course would 
be the more needful, because in agricul- 
tural practice, involving so many varied 
and complex problems, a little rudiment- 
ary knowledge, badly digested, is often 
less serviceable than simple common 
sense and the following of good exam- 
ples. We have here only the reassertion, 
on a different plane, of the principle of 
conservation of force, which forbids us 
to expect obtaining from a given amount 
of virtual energy more than its mathe- 
matical equivalent in work. 

As to the exact amount of instructive 
manual labor that may be profitably re- 
quired of the agricultural student, opin- 
ions and practice still differ considera- 
bly ; but even here the obvious tendency 
is towards restriction rather than in- 
crease, in the older institutions origi- 



nally organized on the labor plan. The 
facility with which any one thoroughly 
conversant with principles acquires the 
mere manual dexterity or handicraft 
forms a strong and increasingly appre- 
ciated argument against extending that 
portion of the too brief educational 
course beyond the point at which the 
pupil possesses a practical knowledge of 
the conditions and details involved in 
the successful pei'formance of an opera- 
tion, leaving to a subsequent " jDractical 
course," or to experience, the acquisi- 
tion of actual dexterity. 

This gradual abandonment of their 
extreme position by the labor schools, 
with an obvious approximation of their 
fundamental ideas to those of the scien- 
tific schools, has on the whole been fol- 
lowed by a reduction of numbers, but 
also by an unquestionable increase in 
their efficiency toward accomplishing the 
primary objects of the Morrill act. With 
the falling-off of that portion of their 
pupils that sought in them merely a 
cheap, low-grade education, with little 
reference to the pursuit or improvement 
of agriculture, there came the need of 
making a showing of quality as against 
mere numbers, in order to maintain 
their standing and claim to legislative 
aid. It was broadly argued that it was 
not the number of pupils on the college 
rolls, and subsequently returned to the 
plow, that would establish their claim to 
utility and support, but their influence on 
the progress of rational agriculture with- 
in their sphere of action. Hence their 
faculties were naturally pushed toward 
exerting that impi'oving influence not 
only upon the sons, but also upon the 
parents themselves, by meeting them 
at fairs, farmers' institutes, conventions, 
and society meetings, and discussing 
with them their needs, failures, and suc- 
cesses. At the same time, the model 
college farm began to be utilized for ex- 
periments designed to determine ques- 
tions of practical importance to agricul- 
ture in the various States, — questions 



Progress in Agriculture. 



11 



with which, perhaps, the farmers them- 
selves had wrestled in vain for want of 
a full knowledge and command of the 
controlling conditions. A few successes 
in this direction at once created a stir 
of interest, as it came to be understood 
that the colleges might be made to con- 
fer benefits not only upon the rising, but 
also upon the existing generation; and 
this, in turn, reacted upon the number 
and quality of the students sent to the 
colleges for the purpose of securing the 
advantages that the knowledge taught 
there might be expected to confer. 

In other words, the popular colleges 
gradually took upon themselves some of 
the functions of experiment stations, in 
investigating agricultural questions of at 
least local, if not general, interest. And 
here their action began to harmonize with 
the scientific colleges. While waiting 
for students to come, the latter had util- 
ized their spare time in trying to awaken 
the slumbering interest of the rural i^op- 
ulation, and had found an effectual stim- 
ulant for the purpose in showing the lat- 
ter the advantages, of a most substan- 
tial kind, that they might derive from 
the systematic scientific investigation of 
the mooted practical questions that were 
being long and contradictorily debated 
in their society meetings and agricultu- 
ral periodicals. That is, they also began 
to constitute themselves experiment sta- 
tions, and to meet the farmer on his 
own ground ; and the practical demon- 
stration of the utility of the knowledge 
they offered to dispense gradually began 
to fill the aching void of the agricultu- 
ral lecture-rooms. 

If we summarize the conclusions le- 
gitimately deducible from the experience 
had in the establishment and working 
of agricultural colleges in the United 
States, as to the wants of the agricul- 
tural population in respect to education, 
they might be stated thus : — 



(1.) Education corresponding to that 
given in the peasant schools of Europe, 
impressing upon the pupil the rules and 
practice of agricultural operations by 
means of constantly repeated manual 
exercise, and at the same time giving 
him a merely elementary general edu- 
cation, proves unsatisfactory and unac- 
ceptable here, where there is no peasant 
class, whose pursuit, as a rule, passes 
hereditarily from father to son. Those 
who care for education at all desire 
something more than mere routine train- 
ing. 

(2.) Neither is there a considerable 
demand, at least consciously, for high sci- 
entific training in agriculture, apart from 
the need for teachers for the agricultu- 
ral colleges, as is proved by the insig- 
nificant attendance on the schools of ag- 
ricultural science unprovided with model 
or experimental farms. 

(3.) The colleges of an intermediate 
character, combining more or less of 
actual farm labor with a fair amount of 
higher instruction in the sciences, are 
more or less numerously attended. A 
large proportion of their pupils, how- 
ever, fail to pursue farming as a calling 
after leaving college, having resorted to 
the latter as a cheap and convenient 
high school rather than for professional 
study. On the whole, their influence 
in improving the methods of agriculture 
in their respective States has not been 
marked, except in the case of those which 
have assumed to some extent the functions 
of experiment stations, and as such have 
rendered assistance in the solution of 
practical agricultural problems. Other- 
wise they are in most cases petted on 
the one hand, and condemned as com- 
paratively useless on the other, in pub- 
lic discussions, in the newspaper press, 
and in the legislatures, to which they 
must periodically apply for pecuniary 
aid to supplement their inadequate en- 
dowments. 



n. 



It would then seem that on the whole 
the people of the United States are not 
fully satisfied with anything that has 
thus far been offered them in the shape 
of agricultural education, and are slow 
to avail themselves of the benefits of the 
Morrill act. Yet the call for such edu- 
cation has been sufficiently loud and 
persistent to prove that there is a real 
want, — that "the shoe pinches some- 
where." May we not fairly conclude 
that the exact spot upon which the press- 
ure comes has not been generally iden- 
tified, and hence well-advised action for 
relief has not been taken ? 

The blame for the indifferent suc- 
cess that has attended their efforts has 
heretofore been freely and even angrily 
thrown upon the colleges by the vast 
majority of those interested ; and the 
most modest suggestion that perhaps 
there is as yet not much real demand 
for agricultural education, properly so 
called, has met with derision, or denun- 
ciation as an intolerable heresy. 

Some of the causes leading to this 
result, the roots of which lie deep in 
our social and educational organization, 
have already been alluded to. Remem- 
bering these, let us consider upon what 
basis a demand for professional agricul- 
tural education must needs be expected 
to rest. 



It will be conceded that, unless the 
" improvement " of agriculture means 
making it more profitable, it will be of 
little avail to preach and teach it. On 
any other ground, the bulk of the farm- 
ing population will place and ridicule it 
under the head of fancy or book farm- 
ing. It is obvious, then, that so long 
as unexhausted soils and an abundance 
of "fresh" land shall enable the. cultiva- 
tor to obtain, even by the rudest tillage, 
what he considers abundant returns, 
his interest in agricultural improvement 
and education will be but slight, or 
more sentimental than practical. He 
may even contend loudly for the rights 
of farmers' sons to a professional ed- 
ucation ; but he will fail to send his own 
sons to get it where it is offered, and 
employ them in taking in more fresh 
land for the home farm, with the view 
of settling each one on a " new place " 
hereafter. The all but universal prev- 
alence of this feeling and practice in the 
newer States explains abundantly the 
almost necessary failure of their agri- 
cultural colleges to secure attendance 
upon their properly professional courses, 
no matter upon what system they may 
be organized. 

Conversely, it is easy to understand 
the increasing interest in the teaching 
and practice of improved agriculture as 
we advance toward the older States, 
whence the inevitable and rapidly swell- 



Progress in Agriculture. 



13 



ing wave of soil exhaustion sweeps 
westward. As the " pinch of the shoe " 
tightens, and the soil fails to respond to 
the ruder touches of the plow, the farm- 
er turns for relief to the experience of 
the Old World, embodied in agricultural 
science ; and when we reach the well- 
worn soil of New England, we find on it 
one of the oldest of the agricultural col- 
leges of the United States, and perhaps 
the most firmly established as such in 
public esteem. Enthusiastically praised 
and loudly condemned by turns, and buf- 
feted as severely by the changing tide of 
popular and legislative opinion as any of 
her younger sisters, the Massachusetts 
Agricultural College, guided by the hands 
of able men and steadied by the exist- 
ence of an indisputable and genuine de- 
mand for the application of the higher 
art and science of agriculture, has be- 
come an influential factor in directing 
agricultural practice in New England ; 
but even here, especially so since it has 
assumed tJie functions of cm experiment 
station. The same cue has been vig- 
orously taken up by Connecticut, and 
the services rendered by the agricultural 
department of Yale, under the manage- 
ment of Johnson and Brewer, have not 
only silenced the sneers often bestowed 
upon the comparative minuteness of their 
agricultural classes, but have given an 
impulse that has extended far south- 
ward and is bearing substantial fruits in 
North Carolina. It is rather singular 
that in this respect the great State of 
New York has until within a few months 
failed to respond adequately to the de- 
mands of the time. While the names 
of Caldwell, Law, and Arnold are fa- 
miliar to the readers of agricultural jour- 
nals in connection with much informa- 
tion and some investigations of high 
practical value, private experiment sta- 
tions, established by public-spirited cit- 
izens, have anticipated Cornell in the 
practical recognition of the agricultural 
experiment station as a necessary factor 
in the promotion of rational agriculture. 



The fruitful idea of the agricultural 
experiment station, where questions of 
local or general importance are system- 
atically and thoroughly investigated un- 
der all the lights that science can give, 
and whence reliable results are directly 
and promptly communicated to those in- 
terested, touches the quick of the whole 
problem of the agricultural colleges in 
the United States. Their importance and 
usefulness in Europe in the elaboration 
and investigation of details is thrown in 
the shade by that which they should 
possess in a new country, where new 
and untouched problems of the most 
vital importance confront the farmer at 
every turn, — problems whose solution, 
even if covered by the general teach- 
ings of agricultural science, lie far be- 
yond the reach of any but the trained 
investigator, provided with all the means 
and appliances that modern science can 
furnish. No agricultural college in the 
new States will need to bid for a cheap 
but hollow popularity by lowering its 
functions to that of a peasant school, 
to secure attendance of pupils, if it will 
but undertake to prove the value of the 
knowledge that may be acquired within 
its halls, by taking up and determining 
(not ex cathedra and dogmatically, but 
by patient, conscientious, and practical 
research) some of the many unsolved 
questions that the farmers of the State 
will bring before its instructors, so soon 
as it is known that such things will be 
attended to by them. The colleges will 
thus be performing the most important 
function within their power, under the 
circumstances : that of educating the fa- 
thers of the rising generation to a prop- 
er estimate of the value of the knowl- 
edge which is offered to their sons. In- 
stead of the ceaseless wrangling as to 
the value and merits of any particular 
system of agricultural education, they 
will find themselves accomplishing that 
of whose value no one will raise a ques- 
tion, and securing that respect and ap- 
preciation of the use of intelligence and 



14 



Progress in Agriculture. 



science in agriculture which is not only 
the expressed intent of the Morrill act 
to foster, hut also the most efficacious 
remedy for the indisposition of our youth 
to engage in farming, and for the pre- 
vention of the disastrous results threat- 
ened by exhaustive culture. It would be 
difficult to overestimate the importance 
of the last-named object, alone ; but it 
will never be accomplished by mere 
]ireaching, unaccompanied by demonstra- 
tions, in the field itself, of the practical 
and financial feasibility and advantage 
of conservative and intensive culture, 
and of the cheapest and most available 
means for the maintenance or resuscita- 
tion of fertility. 

But since these means and methods 
must vary with the climate, soils, and 
products of each region, the college 
should be in possession of accurate in- 
formation on these points, or be able to 
obtain it. This involves the carrying 
out ,of agricultural surveys, properly so 
called ; not merely geological and topo- 
graphical surveys, with a few scattering 
notes and vapid generalities concerning 
the agricultural features and capabilities 
of a State, but an intelligent and de- 
tailed examination of each natural ag- 
ricultural division or region, by persons 
specially qualified as agricultural ex- 
perts. 

Provisions for the cai'rying out of 
such investigations are on the statute- 
books of most of the States, in connec- 
tion with the acts for geological survevs ; 
but few and far between are the exam- 
ples of a bona fide execution of the in- 
tent of this portion of these acts. The 
most recondite researches in almost 
every other department of science — ge- 
ology, palaeontology, mineralogy, orni- 
thology, botany, iclithyology, and even 
couchology — have often had precedence 
over the most needful and elementary 
work bearing directly on agriculture ; and 
the result has been painfully apparent 
in the premature or periodic cuttiug-off 
of state surveys, usually by the vote of 



country members, who failed to see the 
practical benefits of the expenditure in- 
curred. It is a curious fact that in the 
case of some States whose geological 
structure is known even to minute de- 
tails, he who would obtain a general 
idea of their agricultural features must 
laboriously collate scattered data con- 
tained in state or United States reports, 
newspaper paragraphs, the advertise- 
ments of land companies, and informa- 
tion obtained by correspondence. The 
history of the work lately dolie in that 
direction, under the auspices of the tenth 
census, is pregnant with instruction on 
this point. It is interesting to note, also, 
that this neglect is in most cases direct- 
ly traceable to the lack of agricultural 
experts qualified to carry out such work ; 
and the inference is plain that if fhe 
agricultural colleges shall succeed in 
supplying this want, they will do yeo- 
man's service in the cause of agricultu- 
ral progress. 

It is, however, painfully apparent 
that in most cases the means now at 
the command of the agricultural col- 
leges of States where the experiment 
stations are most needed are quite inad- 
equate to the full requirements of such 
work, in addition to the maintenance of 
a proper corps of teachers. As to agri- 
cultural surveys, they are even more out 
of the question, except in so far as the 
instructors may gradually acquire some 
knowledge of the State through person- 
al visits, specimens, and correspondence, 
— a tedious and slow method, especial- 
ly in the larger States west of the Mis- 
sissippi River. These States, moreover, 
have become distrustful of the manage- 
ment and agricultural utility of state 
surveys, and are slow in giving adequate 
pecuniary aid to them. It seems to be 
a case in which enlightened intervention 
and substantial aid from the general gov- 
ernment would be especially well ap- 
plied ; whether in the shape of addi- 
tional endowments, or, in view of the 
uncertain policy of the several States in 



Progress in Agriculture. 



15 



the matter, by the direct cooperation of 
the United States Department of Agri- 
culture with the several colleges. 

The act establishing the Department 
of Agriculture recites that its " general 
design and duties shall be to acquire and 
diffuse among the people of the United 
States useful information on subjects 
connected with agriculture, in the most 
general and comprehensive sense of that 
word, and to procure, propagate, and dis- 
tribute among the people new and val- 
uable seeds and plants." A succeeding 
section specifies that such information 
shall be obtained by the commissioner 
" from books and correspondence, and 
by practical and scientific experiments, 
by the collection of statistics, and by 
other appropriate means within his 
power." 

The very general wording of this act 
leaves to the commissioner a wide dis- 
cretion in respect to the manner in 
which the intent of the law shall be car- 
ried into effect, and probably was in- 
tended to do so by its framers. In view 
of this, it is a curious fact that no qual- 
ifications as to special fitness on the 
part of the incumbent are prescribed ; 
the selection being left entirely to the 
good judgment of the executive. 

It can hardly be surprising that wide 
differences of opinion as to the proper 
scope and mode of action should have 
arisen in respect to the Department of 
Agriculture as well as the agricultural 
colleges. Like the latter, that depart- 
ment and those placed at its head have 
been highly extolled on the one hand, 
and roundly denounced for utter ineffi- 
ciency and uselessness on the other. As 
in the case of the colleges, the truth is 
doubtless to be sought between the ex- 
tremes. Much of what has been object- 
ed to is and has been due to causes lying 
outside of the department itself, in the 
political atmosphere of the country, and 
in the immense extent of the territory 
over which the benefits of the depart- 



ment were to be spread by the aid of 
the small sums that have until quite re- 
cently been at its command. The in- 
evitable great dilution of the effects pro- 
duced under the circumstances could 
hardly fail to draw down upon the de- 
partment the criticism of portions of 
the country, or of certain special agri- 
cultural industries, which for the time 
being found themselves neglected. 

If we examine in detail the records of 
the department, as shown by the annual 
and special reports issued by it, we find 
that, so far as they go, the letter as well 
as the spirit of the law creating it has 
been fairly complied with. It is a com- 
mon thing to hear these reports sneered 
at, and to find them in the receptacles 
usually provided for waste paper. But 
it is generally true that the sneering 
critics are those who would have little 
use for agricultural reports of any kind, 
and that the fault found is not as to 
what is in the reports, but rather what 
is not there ; that is, they do not hap- 
pen to contain anything that applies 
usefully to some particular region or cir- 
cumstances. 

As regards the former class of ob- 
jectors, its only raison d'etre is the un- 
wise mode of distributing these and oth- 
er government reports, chiefly by mem- 
bers of Congress, to or through persons 
whose only interest in them is the polit- 
ical or personal capital they can make 
thereby. Hence we find the plates of 
cattle and other domestic or useful ani- 
mals, plants, fruits, implements, etc., 
which form part of the agricultural re- 
ports, figuring extensively in the nurser- 
ies and other recondite places of towns 
and cities, while the paper-mill is often 
a large-scale recipient of the dejjleted 
volumes. " As valuable and interest- 
ing as an agricultural report " is a say- 
ins that finds its natural origin in the 
wide distribution of these documents 
among those having no real interest in 
anything of the kind. It is sufficiently 
obvious that the required remedy for 



16 



Progress in Agriculture, 



this state of things is a greater diligence 
and conscientiousness on the part of 
members of Congress in getting these, 
as well as other government reports, di- 
rectly into the hands of those for whom 
they are intended, instead of using them 
as lubricants for party machinery. 

The class of objectors to the reports 
because of their omissions is more for- 
midable, because having a real griev- 
ance resulting from the management of 
the work of the department. It will be 
useful, in considering this part of the 
subject, to institute comparisons with 
what other nations have done and are 
doing in the same direction. And in so 
doing it will be found that, while Euro- 
pean reports are replete with accurate 
and laborious investigations of details of 
subjects long discussed, the American 
reports are remarkable for dealing large- 
ly with new and vitally interesting ques- 
tions arising under the peculiar condi- 
tions of our agriculture ; and are there- 
fore read with interest by educated ag- 
riculturists in Europe, who are far from 
considering them, or the general work 
of the agricultural department, as being 
below the proper standard. Apart, then, 
from some weak papers, such as will 
occasionally find their way into much 
more pretentious publications, we need 
not be ashamed of the quality of the 
matter that has entered into the agri- 
cultural reports. 

The adequacy of the department to 
the needs of the overshadowing indus- 
trial interest of the country is quite an- 
other matter, and the weakest point of 
the case. Its work has certainly not 
met the expectations entertained by the 
general public ; apd the causes assigned 
have been as various as the remedies 
proposed. Prominent among the rea- 
sonable grounds for dissatisfaction has 
been the management of the distribution 
of seeds and plants, provided for by the 
original act, that has absorbed a consid- 
erable share of the appropriations made 



by Congress, and for years has loaded 
down the mails with thousands of pack- 
ages of seeds that, even if " valuable," 
were certainly not '^ new " in any sense 
save that of having been grown the pre- 
ceding season, and might have been 
purchased by any one desiring them at 
any country variety store, or at least of 
seedsmen or nurserymen, in any por- 
tion of the country to which they were 
adapted. This practice competed with 
legitimate trade, and alienated from the 
support of and cooperation with the 
department a professionally intelligent 
and influential class of men throughout 
the country. This overstepping of the 
proper limits and intent of the law was 
notoriously brought about under press- 
ure from members of Congress who de- 
sired the seeds, like the reports, to act 
as lubricants toward reelection, or other 
party advantages ; and were especially 
strenuous on the subject of full sets of 
flower-seeds, wherewith to conciliate 
the good ofiices of the female portion 
of their constituencies. Under the 
terms of the appropriation bills, the com- 
missioners were to a great extent help- 
less in preventing this stultification of 
the department, without incurring the 
risk of a defeat or serious curtailment 
of their general appropriation ; and 
while this indiscriminate, injudicious, 
and costly distribution has resulted in 
making known and bringing into use a 
not inconsiderable number of improved 
or new culture plants, the benefits de- 
rived therefrom thus far have been 
largely offset by the ill-will, and in part 
contempt, resulting from the transmis- 
sion of seeds already in the general 
market, or obviously unadapted to the 
local climate. For in the impartial dis- 
tribution claimed by members, cotton- 
seed was sent to New England, and 
Illinois-grown seed corn and California 
wheat each went back to their native 
climes. All the commissicners have 
commented more or less upon the evils 
of this system ; and the firm stand taken 



,Pr ogress in Agriculture. 



17 



by the late commissioner Le Due ou 
this point secured for him the respect 
even of those who found fault with the 
somewhat " personal " character of his 
administration. 

Apart from this obvious and legiti- 
mate cause of complaint, the objections 
to the management of the department 
have not been very definitely formulated, 
and are rather to be inferred from the 
propositions made for changes intended 
to render it more efficient. 

The reasonable claim that agricultural 
interests should have a greater influence 
in the councils of the nation than has 
heretofore been the case has led to a 
movement which contemplates the ele- 
vation of the commissionership of agri- 
culture into a cabinet office. It is sup- 
posed by the advocates of this measure 
that a position and vote in the cabinet 
would insure a more serious and liberal 
consideration of agricultural interests by 
the government. But it is not clear 
what jjractical object would be accom- 
plished by this mere change of name, or 
increase of conventional dignity. The 
time when reforms could be accom- 
])lished by such easy means is past. It 
is not supposable that an afflatus of 
greater wisdom in the management of 
his department would tliereby inflow 
upon the new minister, ex officio ; and 
it would be difficult to point, in the po- 
litical history of the United States, to 
any case in which agricultural interests 
would have been sensibly benefited by 
a cabinet vote. If it is the influence on 
congressional legislation that is contem- 
plated, a much shorter and more direct 
way to reach the object is to send to 
Congress men who shall truly represent 
these interests ; and this it is entirely 
within the power of farmers to do, with- 
out asking any legislation or consent 
of cabinet or Congress. It is the lack 
of a sufficient number of such men in 
the legislative halls, both state and na- 
tional, that keeps the agricultural inter- 



ests begging at the doors of the assem- 
blies for the recognition and aid which 
they ought to be able to command. 
What more need be said on this point, 
so far as Congress is concerned, than 
that the senate committee on agriculture 
of the forty-sixth Congress was composed 
of five lawyers and two members who 
might be classed as agriculturists ? — of 
whom, however, only one remains in 
the same committee of the forty-seventh 
session. In the House, enough just men 
have been found to form about one half 
of the corresjionding committee. How 
can favorable and intelligent legislation 
on a special subject be expected of a 
body thus one-sidedly constituted? 

Forming, as they do, a sweeping ma- 
jority of the entire ^iopulation, why is it 
that the farmers' vote is steadily given 
to men whose interests are not identified 
with theirs, and whose personal knowl- 
edge of the needs of the agricultural in- 
dustry is limited to the most general 
and often misty ideas ? The question 
has frequently been asked by the writer, 
as well as by others, when farmers com- 
plained of want of representation in the 
legislatures. The reply has not gener- 
ally been clear or satisfactory, and it 
has mostly been left to the questioner 
to suggest that it is because farmers do 
not often find among their own number 
men sufficiently trained both in the sci- 
ence and art of agriculture and in the 
requirements of successful public life to 
hold their own, and effectually maintain 
the cause of their constituents, among 
the trained men put into the same field 
by other professions ; and because they 
find that when they do send a " plain, 
practical farmer " to Congress, or to the 
legislature, his vote is usually the only 
manner in which his influence is exert- 
ed; if, indeed, amid the complexities of 
amendments to amendments, he does 
not unconsciously vote the wrong way. 

What agriculture needs is not half so 
much a vote in the cabinet as intelli- 
gent, professionally well-trained repre- 



18 



Progress in Agriculture. 



sentatives in the legislative bodies ; meu 
qualified to be leaders in the agricultural 
as well as in the political field, by as 
thorough and liberal an education as is 
bestowed upon the representatives of 
the other professions. If the agricul- 
tural colleges should do no more than 
to educate leaders of this kind, they 
would render incalculable services to 
the cause. 

But if professional training is needed 
for the representatives of agriculture in 
the halls of Congress, what shall we say 
of tlie qualifications that should be a 
prerequisite for the office of Commission- 
er of Agriculture ? It is not enough that 
he should be an amiable gentleman and 
friend of the President, who has been 
more or less engaged in farming, and 
has some pet ideas or experiments in 
his mind. In or out of the cabinet, 
that officer should combine a thorough 
and comprehensive knowledge of the 
science and art of agriculture with high 
administrative capacity, and a wide ac- 
quaintance with the varied peculiarities 
and needs of the immense region that 
constitutes his field of action. In other 
words, he should be as thoroughly qual- 
ified professional!}^ as the heads of the 
coast and geodetic or geological sur- 
veys ; and when once found to be so, and 
satisfactory to the country, he should, 
like the officers just referred to, hold 
his office during " good behavior," and 
without reference to political parties or 
presidential terms. It is only under 
such conditions that men possessing the 
requisite qualifications will consent to 
hold the office, and that the benefits of 
an intelligent, well-considered policy, 
consistently carried out, can be realized. 
Under the system thus far prevailing, 
the incumbents have as a rule been re- 
moved from office just about the time 
when they obtained a good insight into 
the needs and proper management of 
the department, and became qualified to 
discharge their duties efficiently. 

The definite organization of the De- 



partment of Agriculture as a technical 
bureau, withdrawn from ordinary polit- 
ical changes, is of course incompatible 
with the holding of a cabinet position 
by its head ; since each President must 
of necessity be free to choose his ad- 
visers. By parity of reasoning it might 
be conversely said that the holding of 
a cabinet office by the head of any prop- 
erly technical bureau is incompatible 
with the efficiency of such department, 
unless the actual management is sub- 
stantially left to a competent and eflS- 
cient subordinate. But in that case the 
particular uses of a mere figure-head 
are not apparent. The leader in fad 
had better be also the responsible head. 

It has farther been proposed to in- 
crease the efficiency of the Department 
of Agriculture by enlarging its scope so 
as to embrace not only the properly 
agricultural industries, but also all in- 
dustrial branches cognate with it ; in- 
cluding even the vitally important sub- 
ject of transportation. As it is difficult 
to see just where the intricate corre- 
lations of industries would stop, under 
such a point of view, this would prac- 
tically amount to the establishment of 
a " bureau of industries " of immense 
range and cost, if so equipped as to 
be effective ; whereas, if it were not 
adequately organized and equipped, it 
would almost inevitably so diffuse and 
dilute the share given to agriculture 
proper as seriously to impair the mod- 
icum of efficiency and usefulness thus 
far attained by the department. The 
latter view was evidently the one taken 
of the matter by a committee of the Na- 
tional Grange that recently waited upon 
the present commissioner, to enter a 
protest against such project of enlarge- 
ment ; while still, however, insisting on 
the advancement of the commissioner- 
ship to a cabinet office. The position 
of the committee seems somewhat incon- 
sistent ; for on the one hand they ex- 
press the wish to see the department 



Progress in Agriculture. 



19 



kept as closely and technically agricul- 
tural as possible, while on the other 
they desire to see that done which would 
render a strictly technical character al- 
most impossible. Their action is proof 
conclusive, however, that the practical 
farmers agree with the scientific men of 
the United States in considering that 
there is ample matter within the lines 
of action at present prescribed for the 
Department of Agriculture ; and that 
what is needed is that this wide field 
should be more fully and efficiently 
covered. 

It will be proper to consider this field 
somewhat in detail, both as to the por- 
tions measurably covered heretofore, 
and those which have been slighted or 
omitted. 

(1.) That portion of the work relating 
to the distribution of seeds and plants 
has already been commented on above. 
It has been enormously overdone as to 
quantity, improper selection, and indis- 
criminate distribution, and should un- 
dergo severe pruning in these respects, 
leaving to private enterprise whatever 
it is manifestly likely and adequate to 
accomplish. On the other hand, the 
department should give greatly increased 
attention to the introduction from for- 
eign countries of new species and vari- 
eties of valuable culture plants adapted 
to the varied conditions of the different 
portions of the Union ; and to this end 
it should be able to secure the assist- 
ance of consular agents abroad, not as 
a matter of individual good-will, but of 
duty imposed by the acceptance of the 
office, — if necessary, with such com- 
pensation as may be needful and just. 

In this, as in other matters, the de- 
partment should invoke the active coop- 
eration of the agricultural colleges, both 
in respect to information as to local 
wants and adaptations, and in efi;ecting 
a judicious distribution of seeds and 
plants. 

(2.) In the collection of crop and com- 



mercial statistics and monthly reports 
of the condition of crops, the depart- 
ment has done excellent work ; but the 
geographical scope of that work needs 
to be greatly extended, the number of 
observers and reporters to be increased, 
and, above all, the publication expedited 
so that it shall not be behind private 
enterprise in point of time and accuracy, 
as has heretofore too often been the 
case. If the government printing-office 
cannot give precedence to these month- 
ly reports, over other matter in hand, 
they should be printed elsewhere. 

(3.) In the publication of treatises on 
agricultural subjects of immediate im- 
portance, whether newly written, trans- 
lated, or simply republished, the poli- 
cy of the department and the results 
achieved have been worthy of all praise, 
placing within reach of those interested 
the best information on the subjects 
selected. That this selection has not 
always been the best possible for the 
time being may, in large part at least, 
be ascribed to financial inability to com- 
mand the services of the men needed 
for the tasks. Here, also, a material 
increase of activity is called for, so as 
to place the latest results of experience 
and investigation promptly within the 
reach of farmers. An annual report of 
agricultural progress everywhere, with 
references to sources, should be made a 
standing feature of the general report. 

(4.) Of special work involving exper- 
iment and investigation, that referring 
to entomological subjects has been par- 
ticularly useful and acceptable, espe- 
cially when that portion accomplished 
by the entomological commission during 
its temporary separation from the de- 
partment is counted in, as it should be. 
This subject is of such vital importance 
that a considerable increase of means 
for its energetic prosecution is pressing- 
ly called for. 

(5.) The chemical work has been of a 
somewhat miscellaneous character ; the 
means at command for the purpose, be 



20 



Progress in Agriculture. 



iiig inadequate to the prosecution of ex- 
teuded investigations, have been largely 
given to the examination of specimens 
sent to the department. Considering 
the expenditure, however, a great deal 
of useful VFork has been accomplished. 
The investigations of sorghums and their 
products, and of forage grasses, form val- 
uable contributions to practical knowl- 
edge. It is curious that examinations 
of soils have been almost entirely ex- 
cluded from the list of subjects, under 
a somewhat antiquated impression of 
the inutility of wasting one's efforts on 
so complex and difficult a matter. This 
is a particularly unfortunate omission in 
the one country in the world where it is 
possible to observe soils leisurely in their 
original condition, as well as under the 
progressive phases of culture without the 
use of manures. It has remained for 
the Census Office to take the initiative 
in this important matter, also, in connec- 
tion with the subject of cotton produc- 
tion. Considering that the question of 
soil exhaustion and maintenance of fer- 
tility by the cheapest means is fast be- 
coming the prominent one in the States 
east of the Mississippi River, it can 
hardly be doubtful that the examination 
of this subject is among the most im- 
portant services the agricultural depart- 
ment could render to practical agricul- 
ture. The problems to be solved nec- 
essarily involve such extensive compar- 
isons, systematically made over a wide 
range of soils and climates, as to be out 
of the reach of individual or even state 
action, and peculiarly the province of 
the national Department of Agriculture. 
The prosecution of these and related re- 
searches will of course necessitate great- 
ly enlarged means for chemical and 
physical work. 

(6.) In connection with the more ac- 
curate definition of the several agricul- 
tural divisions of the country as to soils 
and climates, the subject of forestry 
should receive continual and close atten- 
tion, both as regards the naturally ex- 



isting forests and timber supply, and 
their replacement and increase by tree- 
planting in timberless regions. The re- 
ports on the subject made by Mr. Hough, 
however valuable, have but served, to 
show the pressing need of farther work 
in this direction ; and here, again, the 
Census Office has taken a timely and 
most important step forward, in the in- 
vestigations placed under the charge of 
Professor Sargent, of Harvard. 

(7.) The second section of the act 
creating the Department of Agriculture 
specifies, among the means to be em- 
ployed by the commissioner for the ac- 
quisition of the useful knowledge to be 
diffused by him, the making of " practi- 
cal and scientific experiments ; " in other 
words, it charges the department with 
the usual and well-understood work of 
an agricultui'al experiment station. It 
is true that the means and aiDpliances 
for carrying on such work on a scale 
commensurate with the wide field to be 
covered were exceedingly inadequate ; 
but it is also true that, had those placed 
in charge of this trust appreciated to its 
full extent the importance and scope of 
the task thus set before them, and res- 
olutely and intelligently applied them- 
selves to its fulfillment, an impulse might 
have been given that would have been 
felt throughout the land, and would 
long ago have been echoed in every 
State by the establishment of local sta- 
tions, instead of the few that have slow- 
ly struggled into existence under the 
pressure of enlightened local leaders, 
or as step-children of agricultural col- 
leges. As in the case of the latter them- 
selves, the undefined dissatisfaction that 
has hovered round the Deijartment of 
Agriculture since its inception is mainly 
due to the fact that it has failed to ap- 
preciate adequately, and to minister to, 
the strongly-felt want of the American 
farmer for more information directly to 
the point, — information bearing not 
merely upon theoretical and future ques- 
tions, but upon problems immediately 



Progress in Agriculture. 



21 



before him, and bearing within them the 
alternative of success or faihire, crops 
or no crops. In a word, the depart- 
ment has failed to lead, and has barely 
even followed promptly, the movement 
of public opinion and demand in respect 
to agricultural questions, while some- 
times taking vigorously in hand some 
single pet problem, and thereby show- 
ing what might be done from this cen- 
tral position with a keener professional 
insight, and with broader views. 

That the grounds of the department 
at Washington are utterly inadequate to 
the needs of the most modest experi- 
ment station is obvious, and has been 
alluded to by all commissioners. The 
attempt made some time ago to obtain 
a larger plot of land for the purposes of 
the department, in the neighborhood of 
"Washingtoji, failed ; and this is perhaps 
not to be regretted, as the tendency 
seemed to be to render the new domain 
subservient to the purposes of the vicious 
system of seed distribution, and the crit- 
ical undertaking of a " model farm " of 
doubtful utility, especially under semi- 
political management. The reported re- 
sults of the tea-farm experiment in South 
Carolina have cast another unpropitious 
shadow upon such projects. Yet it is 
difficult to see why, with a proper pro- 
fessional organization independent of 
party management, well-conducted ex- 
perimental farms, under the direction of 
the commissioner, should not be as pos- 
sible here as they are in Europe. And 
it can hardly be questioned that in the 
remoter and climatically widely differ- 
ent regions, such as the Pacific coast 
and the " arid " belt lying between the 
Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mount- 
ains, the establishment of branch bu- 
reaus, under the care of assistant com- 
missioners, is needed for the purpose of 
securing to them the advantage of an 
adequate consideration of their peculiar 
interests. In most of the States, how- 
ever, no new or distinct experiment sta- 
tions would at present need to be pro- 



vided for, since they are already organ- 
ized, in a greater or less degree, in con- 
nection with the agricultural colleges, 
under the care of a staff of professional 
men interested in the most direct man- 
ner in the successful performance of 
such experiments as, from the nature of 
the case, the national department would 
be likely to desire in their locality. 
These men would, as a rule, joyfully 
avail themselves of the opportunities 
afforded them by assistance from the 
department, rendered under conditions 
similar to those usually made by the 
Smithsonian Institution, so noted for se- 
curing the highest grade of work at the 
least possible cost. 

The failure to seek and secure the act- 
ive cooperation of the agricultural col- 
leges is one of the most conspicuous 
omissions of the Department of Agri- 
culture. Through them its most useful 
influence could have been exerted, and 
its most authentic information as to 
facts and wants obtained. For some 
years, a somewhat extended account of 
the operations and condition of these 
colleges formed a part of the report of 
the department ; but that subject has 
since been left to the Bureau of Edu- 
cation, — properly, so far as the merely 
educational {)art is concerned, l)ut im- 
properly as regards the ignoring of the 
general work they have been doing in 
the improvement of agricultural meth- 
ods and knowledge. To speak plainly, 
the national Department of Agriculture 
seemed to act, in a measure, as though 
the colleges and experiment stations 
were not in existence. Instead of assist- 
ing them and summing up their work, 
it ignored them sometimes even in the 
matter of distribution of seeds and de- 
partment reports. ' Its traveling em- 
ployees seemed at times to keej") out of 
the way of the existing institutions, often 
laboriously gathering anew information 
already abundantly in the possession of 
the latter. If this was done or omitted 
under the impressiou that the colleges 



22 



Progress in Agriculture. 



or stations were indisposed to cooperate, 
so much the more would it have been 
incumbent upon an enlightened chief of 
such a department to seek them out, and 
stimulate them into active cooperation. 
Except in the matter of an occasional 
call for a convention, of which the com- 
missioner was to be the conspicuous cen- 
tre, and whose results have not been 
very apparent, the colleges have had 
but little attention from the department 
at Washington. 

All this would be at once changed 
were the commissioner to become a 
technical expert, responsible not only 
officially to the government, but amen- 
able to that rigorous and incorruptible 
tribunal constituted of his scientific and 
technical compeers, and under the stand- 
ing menace of a loss of his professional 
reputation, which no whitewashing com- 
mittees, in or out of Congress, could in 
any manner condone or undo. The sub- 
stitution of the opinion and judgment of 
the republic of letters and science for 
that of the political one would constitute 
a self-executing measure of civU-service 
reform which would quickly sweep away 
the clogs and barnacles that have here- 
tofore beset the progress of the depart- 
ment toward its highest usefulness. It 
would at once place it in a position of 
active and necessary reciprocal sympa- 
thy and cooperation with the agricul- 
tural colleges and experiment stations, 
and, through these, with the real wants 
of every portion of the agricultural 
domain. It would thus naturally and 
legitimately become the leading centre 
of agricultural information and prog- 
ress, gathering up all the disconnected 
threads, now scattered from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, into a radiating net-work. 



conveying back and forth messages of 
mutual information and encouragement, 
by deed as well as by word. 

The field is a wide and magnificent 
one, both as to the opportunities it af- 
fords, and as to the practical importance 
of the results that will reward its intel- 
ligent cultivation. It is so vast that 
the proposition to enlarge the scope of 
operations of the department by charg- 
ing it with the duties of a general " bu- 
reau of industry " seems almost a satire 
upon its past history. Moreover, out- 
side of the land office and the care of 
the Indian tribes (the latter, it is to be 
hoped, a subject soon to be eliminated 
from its executive responsibilities), the 
Department of the Interior would as 
naturally cover, under its general intent, 
a bureau of manufactures and mines as 
a bureau of agriculture. 

If it should be contended that the car- 
rying into effect of the system outlined 
in the preceding pages would necessitate 
too great an increase of expenditure, 
the answer is that if the present ap- 
propriation were to be tripled or quad- 
rupled, it would yet bear but an insig- 
nificant proportion to the magnitude and 
commanding imi:)ortance of the interests 
involved, and would be but a fraction 
of the millions annually wasted upon 
expenditures of at least doubtful gen- 
eral utility. The country can far better 
afford to do without a large proportion 
of tlie expensive party manoeuvres, in- 
vestigating committees, and " jobs " de- 
signed for the manufacture of political 
capital, than to neglect any longer to 
foster the fundamental industry, by giv- 
ing those who exercise it the fullest ben- 
efit of the lights that education and sci- 
ence can bestow. 

Eugene W. Hilgard. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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